Colour Theory: Clay Characters by Kim Fjordbotten · Colour Theory: Clay Characters by Kim Fjordbotten Beautiful art materials and advice to inspire creativity! [email protected]

Colour Theory: Clay Characters by Kim Fjordbotten

Beautiful art materials and advice to inspire creativity!

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Project One Create your own custom colour by mixing several colours together. Make a little character using your new colour. Give it a name to suit your colour. Provide a recipe for how to make your special colour so it is easily reproduced. Supplies: Non-drying modeling clay AKA Plasticine

White, Red, Blue, Yellow Optional: Orange, Purple, Green

Basic clay tools or a butter knife Ruler Cardboard cut to 5x7” or 6x8” Pencil, markers notebook Goal These exercises will improve the understanding of colour theory as it relates to the practical application of math concepts such as ratio, fraction, and percentage. Level of difficult can be scaled to higher grades by increasing the number of colour combinations or by using awkward ratios. If your school encourages mentorship between upper and lower grades, this project would work well as senior students create ratios and do the math while younger students mix the colours. Both students can create and name their characters. Two additional projects using colour mixes can be found on the last two pages of this handout. Preparation Look at the different ways companies and designers use colours. Every year Pantone predicts the colour of the year. Clothes designers, home decorators, and even car manufacturers will make products in this colour. How does the paint-maker or the printer know how to get the exact version of the year’s popular colour? Show the students samples of house paint colour charts. How does the paint mixer get the right colour for each customer? It is done by colour recipes. It is basic math — ratios and percentages.





Step 1 Divide and distribute 2 primaries to each student. Note: Yellow and Blue work best. Red and Blue or Red and Yellow will be subtler combinations.

Roll-out colour. Use your fingertips gently to roll clay onto a table surface to create long snake-like forms of even thickness, about ¼ inch or ½ centimeter.

Measure and cut snakes to equal lengths 2 inches or 5 centimeters. Six pieces of each colour are required.

Arrange the colours in groups of 4 pieces in the following ratios 1:3, 2:2 and 3:1.

Mix two primaries to create 3 versions of the secondary colour.

Step 2 Have a grade-appropriate discussion of how this is expressed in math.

Roll long tubes. Cut into equal parts. Arrange the ratios. Mix new colour.

Green 3 3 Blue - 1 Yellow 3:1 3/4, 1/4 .75 and .25 25% Yellow, 75% Blue

Green 1 1 Blue - 3 Yellow 1:3 1/4, 3/4 .25 and .75 25% Blue, 75% Yellow

Green 2 2 Blue - 2 Yellow 2:2 same as 1:1 2/4 same as 1/2 .5% and .5% 50% Blue, 50% Yellow





Step 3 Add white to create three tints of your secondary colour. Repeat the same procedure as in Step 1.

A. Elementary Level: If you have a store-bought green and add white, the ratios for three tints would be the same as previous exercise.

Green 6 3 Green - 1 White 3:1 3/4, 1/4 .75, .25 75% Green 25% White

Green 4 1 Green - 3 White 1:3 1/4, 3/4 .25, .75 25% Green, 75% White

Green 5 2 Green - 2 White 2:2 same as 1:1 2/4 same as 1/2 .5%, .5% 50% Green, 50% White

5 part Colour Mixing 1:4 = 20% 2:3 = 40% 3:2 = 60% 4:1 = 80% Other shapes will work too. Encourage the students to estimate and experiment.

10 part Colour Mixing: Skin Tones Too much yellow will turn it too greenish. Less white will create darker skin tones. 1:9 = 10% 2:8 = 20% 3:7 = 30% 4:6 = 40%

More Fun! View your mixed colours under a microscope. They are not as mixed as you think. Our eye cannot see the small details so it simplifies the information and we see a new colour.

Try these!





B. Junior/Senior Level: What if you used Green 2 from Step 1? Green 2 is the light green made by mixing 1 part blue and 3 parts yellow. Now mix with white How will your ratios reflect the amount of mixed colour in proportion to the white?

Does it make sense? Let’s express it visually. Consider the initial ratios for blue and yellow that made the green, compared to amount the white. In math terms, this is called finding the common denominator. It's usually easiest to add, subtract, or compare fractions when each is expressed with the

same denominator, called a "common denominator". In the clay, finding the common denominator can be demonstrated by cutting all the pieces to match the amount of least used colour. For example, in Green 4, there is less blue than white or yellow (1:3:12). The image to the right indicates this ratio visually.

Green 5 1 Blue - 3 Yellow – 4 White 1:3:4 1/8 + 3/8 + 4/8 .125, .375, .5 12.5% Blue 37.5% Yellow 50% White

Green 4 (1 Blue: 3 Yellow) 1 Blue - 3 Yellow – 12 White 1:3:12 1/16 + 3/16 + 9/16 .06, .19, .75 6% Blue 19% Yellow 75% White

Green 6 3 Blue - 9 Yellow – 4 White 3: 9: 16 3/16 + 9/16 + 4/16 .19, .56, .25 19% Blue 56% Yellow 25% White





Here are examples along with their ratios to illustrate the range of colours made using only the primary colours.

Project Two Take 5 photos of your character in different poses or angles that fit together so they make a mini Claymation movie or flip book. Write a little story. How did your character get his colour? Does her colour have a super power?





Project Three Let’s use all the beautiful new colours to make a textured relief painting by pressing colours onto cardboard. Do you need inspiration? The Paint Spot stocks several books on clay creatures.

Look in the library for children’s books illustrated by Barbara Reid. Visit her website.

http://www.barbarareid.ca/workingwithplasticine.html

Documents

Colour Theory: Clay Characters by Kim Fjordbotten · Colour Theory: Clay Characters by Kim Fjordbotten Beautiful art materials and advice to inspire creativity! [email protected]